Chancellor: UPNG will start classes on Tuesday

 By LUKE KAMA
ACTING Chancellor of the University of Papua New Guinea Dr Nicholas Mann says classes at the Waigani campus will resume on Tuesday.
Mann said classes would start as per the revised 2016 academic calendar approved by the university council recently.
“The university will remain open and semester one and two of 2016 could be completed,” he told a media conference yesterday.
“At the school of medicine and health sciences, the students went back to classes last Monday.
“As of last week, classes have been normal and they did not participate with what happened on Wednesday.
“On the main campus, we believe and we have reasons to believe that the majority of the students did not take part.
“If it was majority of the students, the number would have been bigger and much more catastrophic, but it’s a handful of students who are hell bent to take the law into their own hands or think that they could change the course of the nation.
“What happened on Wednesday is containable and classes will resume.
“It has not affected majority of the students and staffs, no university property and there is normalcy and we expect this to continue.
“But if there is a situation where other students want to continue boycott, they could continue but it must not infringe on the rights of other students.
“Meaning barricading lecture rooms or holding forums on the campus.
“The university has obtained a restraining order against the SRC and the students from boycotting classes at the university pending the determination the proceedings and restrained them from conducting activities which are contrary to their enrolments as students at UPNG.”
Mann said UPNG would continue its noble task of educating Papua New Guinean and foreign students.
“I appeal to the provincial and district leaders, parents, sponsors and especially the students to cooperate together with the university to restore normalcy and complete the semester,” he said.
Eight students had suffered gunshot wounds and were  admitted to the Port Moresby General Hospital.
Hospital chief executive officer Grant Muddle told The National that the wounded students were stabilised and admitted.
Muddle said two were later discharged after treatment.
The shooting has prompted riots and protests in other centre.
Despite the police shooting on the unarmed protesting students and related violence, Port Moresby was quite yesterday with shops seen operating.